September 2005 Archives

LOKING might be better than Loving, I think: the BOBW (best of both worlds).

Jessica is a terrifically inspiring craft partner; almost exactly a year ago, we sat on Steven's orange carpet in the old apartment and she helped construct my infamously awesome "history of Queensbridge rap" diorama, the centerpiece of which featured photocopied cut-outs of Capone n Nore riding in a pintsize replica of a BMW SUV, purchased for four dollars from a dude on the street (he was clean out of Humvees). Jessica glued in some dirt for the ground and made bushes from green yarn; when she was finished, she modgepodged the whole of Steven's ugly ceramic lamp with green glitter while I pasted busts of Nas and Roxanne Shante to the landscape. I gave the diorama away as a gift and the lamp didn't survive the move, but it's all about the process anyway, the labor of loke.

Autumnal.
Just say it.

This reminds me of the story my roommate told me about the class she took with Susan Brownmiller, then- visiting professor at NYU, in which Brownmiller detailed traveling to Puerto Rico for an abortion pre-Roe v. Wade. Back in the states and broke, she hitchhiked and bled the whole way to New York, thinking she wouldn't survive it.

Mmmm... good times.

Libby? Hahahaha can i get an indictment one time? Thanks.

Nonsense: The Federal Bureau of Prisons website presents the Philly FDC like it's the Sheraton page on travelocity dot com, all luxury hotel, aglow in the twilight and "located in the historic district," like they're putting mints on pillows and taking inmates on trips to visit the Liberty Bell, like it's a cupcake facility, not a concrete jungle.

New York, you have until October 29 to see LA painter Sage Vaughn's gorgeous diaphonous landscapes and anthropomorphic gang paintings, in which a jagged estuary of bluejays, spotted owls, robins, hummingbirds perch on razorwire fences and telephone poles, their breasts tagged and tattooed with vatos locos and latin kings in olde english, baseball logos, and Chanel imprints. Do it now. The language on the dactyl site is not quite how i'd put it (children gone feral..)/... my feeling, and the parts that made me cry (as I am wont to do), was tapped from the austere beauty of birds stuck in the thistle and bramble of the manmade: the notion of endangerment (how small they look against the sky), and yet the hopeful subtext of animal adaptation, steelhardiness. After that, I thought of: Cesar Chavez and a bomb Cadillac, boy from highschool smalltown gangs so atrisk, how i wish it really were true that gangstas don't die, they get fat and move to miami, Bobby Lovato, mi vida loca, que tal. And, of course, the resolute delicacy with which the birds sit.
Sage Vaughn is a particularly special human.
Cali introduced me to him briefly and the first words from his mouth, after "Nice to meet you Julianne," were, "You're amazing!" I believed him.
All Cali's friends that I met are painstakingly open and emitting supernatural amounts of loving kindness. The kind you earn by living--some breathtaking respect for life after divining the right reasons for them (respect, and life).
Cali, too, is an exceptionally open, enlightened and special human.

The rest of the night unrolled and i rolled with it, rolled with the LA crew living extraordinarily, all, and I picked up stories like I'm Harriet the Spy:

A photographer who lived with the Zapatistas but refused to play a vampire in a music video on the principle that "I am not a vampire." (the same photographer who described a plane crash in which he nearly died as a major drag).

A lady who rechristened herself "Sweet" and, after surviving the JetBlue flight (the one), reinforced her moniker by worrying for three hours before the crash landing--not of her impending dramatic death, but whether her impending dramatic death would fuck up the art opening.

A feisty young fellow who acted on a popular cable television show, who sat sideways and said to me, "I just spent the whole summer doing the new Spike Lee movie." (Yo it's called a JOINT!)

A junk-shop clerk with an actual diamond surgically embedded into his right incisor.

And dear old Dan Monick. Oh Dan Monick, city pages alumnus, minneapolis uber-dun, photographer of HoldSteady cover photo on the new (and as yet forthcoming) issue of Hit it or Quit it. Oh Dan Monick, you and your stunning ubiquity!

(PS look at dan;s gallery, click on music, and click on the third photo down on the left for my favorite, his portrait of andrea echeverri. pps i am sewing myself a copy of that dress as we speak)

Last night, it was like I spent it in Los Angeles.

Also, if you are looking to sell your used
karaoke machine to a household of three
exuberant young women who will love it
like it has always been ours, please email
julianneshepherd@yahoo.com.
Sondheim's "I'm still here!" guaranteed

two new lil kim tracks at dubcnn.com (scroll down)--lyrics and beats, not so much, but wow does kim's voice sound amazing and raw like the grimy end of a grate when she's not fronting so untouchable/ uncrushable.

pps. vh-1 hiphop honors, don't know if it'll translate to tv, but the live was mucho fun--watch for big daddy kane, s'n'p/en vogue recreating "whattaman" video, luda/faith slow interpretation of "juicy"!--and eyeball, the graphic dudes, commissioned the incredible ny-based artist kehinde wiley to paint portraits of all the honorees, the existence of which are worth the whole program as far as i'm concerned--Ice-T reinvisioned as Napoleon, LL as Rockefeller. in the program-program, in response to the question "when you were approached to do this in the context of hip-hop, what were your initial thoughts? were you skeptical?" kehinde sez:

"Certainly. Principally because the strength of my work has to do with the anonymity of the subject and the juxtaposition between heroicism and the anonymous. And in that sense, working within this context radically shifts what it is that I'm doing. It becomes a completely different enterprise. And what I think is fascinating about this is that we're now pairing very well-known and, in some senses, very powerful people with very powerful people from the past. And what you can gain from looking through these art history books is an understanding of hoow the vocabulary of power can evolve, and how you aestheticize male and female power. And so what we have here is all those tricks laid bare and compounded with the presence of hip-hop, which has its own sort of interest in power and the grandiose."

Awesome--love that dude's work.

"It is far more difficult to murder a phantom than a reality." —Virginia Woolf, as quoted in the intro to Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth

Brian Bassett of Southern California took time out of his day working over at Blueprint Mortgage, 607-2727 ext 17, to write some constructive criticism to my inbox. So thanks to Brian for that.

Meanwhile, Robert Hammond "occasionally of Dusted," rebeljukebox dot net, and Wesleyan, wrote a criticism of my David Banner "Certified" review at pfork, invoked Adorno, and e-mailed me “requesting she respond to this post.” You sure, B? Sigh.

One of his probs w/my David Banner Certified review:

The review doesn’t even talk about the single that preceded Certified’s release, “Play.” How, in a legitimate album review, can you not mention the single that is currently all over the radio and BET? I’ve written here before that I didn’t dig the song, saying it was a re-hash of “Wait (The Whisper Song)” and emphasizing that the misogyny of these songs becomes particularly inexcusable when it comes in the form of mere imitation/cash-in. The difference between my short (and probably unnecessarily harsh) preview of Certified and Julianne Shepherd’s review on Pitchfork is that I actually expressed my displeasure in words. Instead, Shepherd expresses her displeasure by furthering a feminist agenda through her omission of Banner’s misogyny in her review.

Though I in no way see misogyny in music as a positive, I still respect artistic expression, warts and all. Shepherd obviously does not, and seems to think that it’s her job to clean-up David Banner’s less wholesome act. She is also paternalistic towards the readers of Pitchfork, who apparently aren’t intelligent enough to separate the misogyny they hear in music from their own actions.

* "some of my best friends are privileged white men!"

Firstly, I don't know that political agendas are extricable from anything anyone writes, whether said agendas are admitted, implied, or inherent. That's essentially saying reviews aren't subjective. We are stewards of the world, we are stewards of the culture, and the personal is political acknowledged or no. Secondly, the constant use of "legitimate music critic" and "legitimate review" is itself icky, because what is "legitimate," who is the legitimizer, how do we all agree on a definition of legitimacy? The idea of "legitimate" reeks of a hierarchy and is hostile to the free flow of ideas. Thirdly, uh... I respect artistic expression. I'm not censoring shit. And I do imagine the majority of Pitchfork readers are probably wicked intelligent. FOURTHLY, as my dear friend and peer Jessica R. Hopper pointed out, “Dude is attacking you for being a feminist by saying he IS a feminist… You have no responsibility to put your bias on the table, and that guy is just trying to discredit you, as if this is some "fair and balanced" shit. It's totally bullshit. He would never do that to a dude. Never.”

Back to Ole Bob’s complaints. Indeed, my assessment of David Banner’s Certified was probably more “profile” than “review”--didn't i show his contradictions? didn't i employ the word "contradictions" in like, para. 1?--and it wasn't my surefire entree for the Pulitzer, but as an ABC of music writerliness, here is a lesson: Considering Banner's high-profile Katrina outspokenness/activity, and the fact that Pitchfork is a web-only publication that operates in the fluid timezone of the internerd, it was incredibly important to give the album its proper now-political context. It's true, I didn't write about "Play." Not just because my first fucking draft was something approximating 1244 words (too long~even for web!!), the song came out like 40 years ago and other songs *you haven't already heard* were more interesting, and anything I would have written about it at this point would have been the cursory "Hot off the single "Play," which drops trou to Mr. Collipark and watches a lady auto-eroticize so that Mr. Banner may then perform cunnilingus on her and, hopefully, bring her to climax, over some shit-hot siren whorl."

But also because I don't think "Play," in and of itself, is all that misogynistic (barring the one "beat that pussy up" party line that, in the context of this song, takes on a different meaning than the YYT song). It's explicit, si, but I cannot be mad at a track about a dude trying to make a woman orgasm, yknow. (P.S. The female orgasm is one of the cornerstones of second-wave feminism!)

If I had been trying to push forth my feminist agenda, you would've known it.

Further from Mr. Hammond:

Misogyny in hip-hop is an important issue. Efforts to eliminate this element from the culture of rap, such that the content of the music no longer reinforces the patriarchy / marginalizes females, are admirable and indispensable. However, this should not, and does not, condone censorship. Merely ignoring it and thus misrepresenting the art is abhorrent to criticism.

Because I don't think Pfork readers are stupid: Misogyny /violence are EMBEDDED IN THE FABRIC OF THE CULTURE / misogyny and violence are rewarded in rap, in particular, VIA record contract / and are especially fostered and reinforced by the bush/cheney deathfuck regime / one reason misogyny is present in most rap albums released today, corpo and otherwise, whether it takes the shape of stripclub flagellation or the young MC who lures girls backstage via forlorn puppy-dog narratives, and I WRITE ABOUT THAT SHIT EVERY DAY, almost literally. BUt since you asked. Yes, when I heard Gangsta Boo's voice on certified--simply the sound of her voice on a rap album, rapping--I was thrilled and/or passing out with joy, like here is a space where a lady is "allowed" to exist, if only on a chorus, and not as object or subject, not as "token female rapper," but as peer. That was amazing. Other points: there was the fucked up Too $hort track (imagine!), wherein the "hoe" is presented as conquest as a way of sonning the enemy, her man. That track was also kind of shitty. "Sonically." And there was the "I fucked up, shorty" track, thinking bout you, which I loved, and had the apology for the hands around the neck, then expressed remorse, and deserves a whole essay unto itself.

This right here is tantamount to good old second-wave-style exhaustion. After serving on the Ying Yang Twins "Wait" CMJ panel and basically cashing out after one panelist repeatedly deployed the absurd term "male-dominated consensual sex" after outing his ex-girlfriends' sexual proclivities/requests in a public space (while she was, presumably, absent and unable to comment on whether she thought that was ok) the selfsame day a dude in my neighborhood, as i walked to the train, looked at me and said, "Baby i could break you open" ominously, not to mention the standard occurrence of uninvited touching in clubs and beleaguring street hollers: "you gotta boyfriend?"s, "damn"s, “come’eresexy”s leers and/or catcalls or what have you, on a daily basis--every day, yes daily, uncomfortable, uninvited and invasive verbal reminders of the power structure and where i fit in it: all meat, who's the boss. "TONY 'MOTHERFUCKING' DANZA UP IN THIS 'BITCH.'”

So yeah dude, i've got a feminist agenda, because I live that shit. I'm dropping 1200 words from my bedroom/office which take much longer to write than they should, often paralyzed by precogged dismay and anxiety (writer-typical/gender-blind!), fully knowing that you and Brian Bassett of Blueprint MOrtgage and a whole cadre of dudes and other "occasionals" are sitting at the other end of the interweb, waiting to release the slingshot, ready to be right. Because as much as you wanna tout intellectual engagement with a piece of art as your endgame, in the end the game is the province of men and it's all about being right, non? Yeah, it’s about being right and it’s about superiority and it's about being threatened--and, fuck that, cause for me, it’s about spending the last ten-plus years of my life working my ass off, forging a path from undereducated/but enthusiastic teenaged fanzine publisher to autodidactic (still enthusiastic) full-time writer “legitimized” by economics, my hard-won ability to self-support doing the above, climbing out by my fingernails, also thanks to the forgiving outstretched hands of a whole range of humans, eat drink man woman, willing to help pull me up off the floor.

And so here’s where you’re right: The intro. “Heal” vs. “Feel.” It was still part of my point, but it was pretty much typo-tron 9000. What can I say. Sometimes we fuck up, sometimes we are flawless. I will allow someone on a web accountability fact-checking panel one (1) free pass to invoke my name in the future.

Ironically, “the song is called “treat me like a pimp” on the CLEAN version of Certified, which was the version of the hard-copy I procured from the record label and used as fact-checking, because they were “all out” of non-censored versions. So if it makes it to the radio, “treat me like a pimp” is the version you’ll hear.

Straight up, dude, the goal is to write, eat the parts that don't work, and keep it movin'--whilst being mindful of my privilege, respectful of my lack of it, and living a righteous life accordingly, and doing so until He finds the "mercy" to "deliver" me, “He” being the affluent Western racist patriarchy that seeks to systematically mentally and physically undermine all those starting back at the 20-yard line. Nahmean? This is why I am ecstatic that you, Bob Hammond, occasionally of Dusted, Wesleyan, and rebel jukebox, have signed up, signed on, and pledged to call out/put in work against the sexism, racism, heterosexism, classism, and otherwise, in everything you write from now to eternity, because, after all, it is a terrific burden for the handful of skippers presently tugging an entire fleet of Princess cruiseliners, and we could use another hand. Come aboard! We're expecting you!

More importantly, CnP is hoping everyone read this piece, too, on the ineffectuality of the Red Cross. Love and hope to Houston and I’ll work on getting some more links for non-Red Cross donation places.

And now, I’ve got a television shoot to attend, thank you.

YOURS,
Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
South Brooklyn, NY
22 Sept 2005

Hillary Clinton owes a good portion of her political success to the upswing in activist feminism after the Anita Hill testimony/Clarence Thomas hearings. So how can she still... STILL be on the fucking fence about john roberts? hillary was never entirely what we (idealist feminists) wanted her to be but lo, sign of the times, she keeps selling us out for the sake of her perceived political future--which, hate to say it my dear, but it ain't happening, particularly if you keep leaning back into the money-dirty arms of the right and giving the rest of us the Reed dis*.

*(the reed dis, as defined by my former colleague and reed alumni katia dunn, is when a person is friendly to you in class, but outside campus is all "do i know you?" young jeezy style.)

Tomorrow's the real deal fish scale: the fruits of my admittedly minimal amount of labor. Sorry about the lack of Prodigy, but 14-year-old me is pumped for this field trip nonetheless. Mission statement: after tomorrow, just below the photo of the eagle soaring into the grand canyon, the "Successories" poster in my office will read: Danced with Ciara. Asked Common if he's like, totally read bell hooks' "the will to change: men masculinity and love," and whether it influenced Be. (Why has no one done this? Jessica? Becky?) And, you know. Drank catered coffee with my cohorts.
I have a million more.

Finally, some people got some damned sense around here. Or, to borrow their own term, "principles." Aorta-sized daps to Ed Kennedy.

Max Baucus wants you to give him a holler at 202.224.2651. New York, stand up!

Also, maybe I don't understand the politics of the situation, and that maybe it's not possible to vote yr conscience because of the ideological booby traps Bush and his corpo friends have been bricklaying for five-plus years, but can someone tell me what's going on with our boy Obama, please?

Also also, in what alternate universe are civil rights groups "liberal?" Am I being naive? Is this 1847?

addendum" on some ohsnap-like synergisms, smart yng. caps addresses some of the above.

I put the kibosh on their first album for being too "Built to Spill." I still think I was right. It was Oregon in the '90s, obviously, because Built to Apill was an abundant and acceptable reference point. In the first part of summer, 2000, Joe and I rode bikes to see Death Cab play the Meow Meow, 300-capacity, all ages so BlowPops and Select Black Cherry shilled in place of beer, one of the first shows with their old drummer Michael, who moonlit as a clerk at Everyday Music and sold us Joe Pass records for probably way too cheap. We listened to Joe Pass' '70s jazz guitar *Virtuoso* & Genesis Lamb Lies Down on Broadway like every goddamn day that summer (so much prog, so much Timex Social Club on cassette), and I remember thinking Death Cab were mushy. Not mushy-love-mushy, but mushy, smushy; not distinctly defined. So hot off the release of their major-label debut--and long after The OC began kowtowing to the ad-Christ--is probably a silly time to come around on Death Cab. But fuck it: homeslice has the voice of a pedicurist, a thurrapist, and/or the lady running the $15/hour water-massage booth at the Sea-Tac mall, alabaster and nuzzling and lingering to assuage the purge. Ben Gibbard and I are the same age, we have always been the same age, but right now i can look tracks 1, 7, and 9 in their pupils and something registers, something resonates. I got you, Gibs.

I don't know if this makes me zeitgeistical post facto or what. My friend, a dedicated fan, thinks "What Sarah Said" is the only truly stand-out song. Not sure I can really tell the difference. But I listened to it and I like Plans.

i'm just sketching and stringing.

Crack scooped me on "hoes hoes hoes hoes hoes," in form at least, but for punctuation's sake: Last night, poor sloughed DJ Assault, live, absurdly talked along to his own tracks; into the mic: "broke. ass hoes. broke. ass hoes. hoes hoes hoes hoes hoes hoes hoes," the din of bass distracting from the relentless lack of syncopation. "We're gonna take this one back to '97," he announced, but I think we were thinking it all along: i mean, he OPENED his set with "Ass N Titties." More than anything, I wanted to know what happened to his old partner/mastermind Mr. De, whose fucking genius post-assault release "electronic funkyshit" (2000) fused gossamer r&b with detroit ghetto house chutzpah, enriching my life for, i dunno, like 2 1/2-5 years. Assault's set, full of classics but lacking in melody, felt a little hollow and a lot outmoded, particularly following the dense chunk of club tracks (b’more, y’all) the Hollertronixzesz spun.

The early evening, though, with Peedi and Bun, was epic: The former, my betrothed. The latter, my father.

More on this somewhere else. Novelized?

The new pharrell track, featuring gwen in her best "shelley duvall as olive oyl" impression, sounds better on a sound system than my crappy stereo; I'm into it, but the first time I heard it I thought the bridge had questionable flow, choppy from self-awareness (i.e. the point where pharrell thought to himself, "oh, snap, i am supposed to be flying the Enterprise, so I better do something unexpected... right... *here*"). But under the corporeal hypnosis of the subwoofer, it clicked.

Who am I kidding. The corporeal tug of the subwoofer = practically everything clicks.

Then Nicholas I.S. Catchdubs and Seanathan Fennessey, infinitely charming fellows that they is, regaled.

I love my friends.

My friend Marianna Ritchey, another friend who I also love, today she wrote to me this:

"Lovin' with an apostrophe: implies sexual content."

She is funny.

The following falls under the category of other:

nick sylvester: only mand who bought a nano?

right now in the courtyard across the way, someone is blasting their '80s "from the heart" mix--luther then michael mcdonald then whitney now bangles "eternal flame"--next is totally gonna be phil collins' "groovy kind of love"--p.s. shout to diplo for spinning the phil collins-penned "there's something goin on" by frieda--

the woman blasting her '80s mix is also singing along very loudly and very off-key, her voice ricocheting off the ting of her barbecue grill and into my room.

i am getting choked up.

or maybe i'm emotional cause Dale Davis, Rasheed Wallace = UNITED AGAIN! And the Spurs finna change their name to the Strokes.

"THE END OF CRITICISM"?/thoughts

i borrowed some books from the '90s from the library, including katha pollitt's 1994 "reasonable creatures: essays on women and feminism," wherein ms. pollitt is blurbed by novelist/memoirist mary gordon as "bracing, while always maintaining a wonderful lightness. She is the gin-and-Campari of the women's movement."

Mary Gordon's memoir The Shadow Man, the New Yorker wrote, is "irradiated by flashes of lyric brilliance."

from another book, jean genet's the declared enemy, a kind of response: "journalists like to throw around words that grab our attention, but they have little concern for the slow germination of these words in the minds and consciences of individuals."

hoes hoes hoes hoes hoes hoes hoes hoes

walkie talkie

If you're anywhere near a borough, you already know the only way to get tix to the boost mobile rockcorps show w/Fat Joe, T.I., Young Jeezy et al is by volunteering four hours of your time to a community project, preordained and relatively pain-free, such as: painting the interior of a school, contributing to a mural outside any a boys and girls club, or building a mosaic in a park. And if you're in Brooklyn, you also know that wheatpasting every corner with Quark-constructivist posters of Fat Joe--all Menshevik'd out in camo hues like some street disciple of Trotsky--is a terrifically effective, if infinitely complicated, multi-objective marketing plan.

Masterminder Boost Mobile is, according to its "about" page, a "lifestyle-based youth brand" which "fuses youth aspiring sports, music, fashion and entertainment, enabling" us to "...acheive greater independence." Active community wilkommen / ATL rap tracks notwithstanding, I've got empirical evidence re: the effectiveness of "enabling independence." (Or, at least, more evidence than t-shirts of the popularity of Young Jeezy: yesterday my neighbor told me to name my new cat "The Snowman.") It's just that, every time i leave my house, from my front door to the end of the street, approximately four or five times I hear a lil tweet on the chirp (EL NEXTEL ACTUALE). Yeah, there's a pay-to-play boost mobile booth in the bodega on the corner (ch*ching), but that shit beats out "Jamrock" for most-exhausted jingle on the block. I mean,
it is 3:26 am and i just heard it out my window, which faces a courtyard; they're rocking it like an anthem on the fire escape across the way.

Everybody's on the walkie talkie. It sounds prettier than pigeons at the least.

subway

me: "yo, you know something that's fucked up? you know that new tv show w/neil patrick harris? i saw a preview for it, and there's this moment where neil exclaims i am totally putting that on my blog! and it is meant as a moment of zeitgeistical humor."

chris: "i mean, when you think about it, doogie howser was the original blogger."

cell phone

me: "wanna know something that's real fucked up?"

ezra: "....."

me: "ezra?"

ezra: "Oh, sorry, what? I wasn't listening. I'm playing Hater Hurter on dj paul wall dot com... and evidently, I fell off."

i love this song

it's true, i love this song

yeah, i know it's gonna end up in the file of "tracks with great choruses and shitty peedi crakk interludes that only I love, from albums that will only ever be available in the middle listening station in the elevator bank of def jam's lobby... and the headphones are busted" two words NICOLE WRAY.

("if i was your girlfriend": i mean, the video is a little misguided, and as a result nicole is slightly lacking in energy--but how can you be mad at a track that's all chorus, when the chorus is that?)

a grand welcome to chris, just in time for the elections. his "farewell boston" post includes not just the cursed Citgo sign, the billboard on horizon which supercedes the moon--how is it that in a city filled with important american landmarks, from fenway to faneuil, the godforsaken citgo sign is the most commonly accepted city-identifier? really--

but chris also writes his farewell post like a man obsessed with six feet under. perhaps?

traditional medicinals gypsy cold care VS lemon-cayenne homebrew VS tom yum soup, extra on the heat? what is the remedy for the sweaty cold? carrot juice, wheatgrass, ginger, celery? emergen-c? i've self-administered all of the above, please assist with your magic delivery, no pharmaceuticals. the only chemicals i dust off like that are topical, as in DR. HAUSCHKA. oh also i have made a steam of water, 2 caps of apple cider vinegar and a bunch of grapefruit seed oil. breathing in that potent concoction usually works, but didn't. my head: vice grip.

alarm went off 7 am i woke to Montell Williams on hot 97: he is counting heads. gives numbers, not sure where he got his numbers but will work on it, counts evacuated heads, says:

"120,000 weren't evacuated. where are they? that's what you gotta ask yourself."

Montell was also in New Orleans on Thurs, Fri, confirmed that many shooters were not aiming for helicopters, were trying to get their attention to be rescued. His shows will air mon/tues.

horrific stories: the tourists are talking.

now, for a moment, breathe.

NY: unitedforpeace&justice "picket at federal building": Friday, Sept. 9, 5:30 – 6:30 p.m.
90 Church Street, between Vesey and Barclay Streets (2,3,4,5,6,A,C,J,M,Z,R,W)

SF: if you live in the yay areeeeaaaaa, and you love dancing, deep listening, don diva, derrida and/or mokenstef--and i know you do--you have to go tomorrrrrow to the caps & jones, our people, your city, DJs fire up the dancefloor.

PDX: i am so jealous you get to have this time-based arts festival. Kota Yamazaki! Tiffany Mills! And the migration of the Vaux's Swifts as part of the festival programming is so perfect. (look on the schedule, i can't direct-link it.)

N. BKLYN: then again, we are finally coming up close on Agora by Noemie Lafrance, a dance staged in the McCarren PARk pool. site-specific performance, you are my best friend. it's like in garden state (which i just saw for the first time like, um, 2 weeks ago) when natalie portman's character is all, "do something now, no one else can ever do again, something totally unique". you know? TOTALLY.

i've got a head cold and all the conventions that normally keep my preteen valley girlisms in semi-check are down in the blood cells, sparring w/bacteria.

S. BKLYN: the bk public library (central) "welcome winter" film program (free every friday!) includes: Fargo, The Ice Storm and White Christmas. the overall concept of this scheduling--murder; despondence; JOYEUX NOEL!!-- pleases me a little bit.

CHI-CITY: thanks to jessica r. hopper, $80 fares WHAT UP ATA!, and saturday just cause, i will be in yr city sept 30-oct 3. let's turn on B96 and have a dance party wherever we happen to be standing.

per ebenezer, G.A.ME is holding a day benefit (DONATE GOODS). plus the first 100 ppl donating get free tix to the dipset / d-block black panthers commemoration on oct 7. see below for new places to donate in brooklyn, manhattan and mississippi:

A Benefit for the victims of the Katrina disaster. Free. Just Donate something.
Performances by Brand Nubian - Sean Price - C-Ray Walz - Plus very special guests!!!
Friday September 9, 2005, 3:30pm in the afternoon.
Hunter College
Thomas Hunter Building Room 105B
Entrance on Lexington between 68th & 69th
The event is free and the space is limited.

G.A.ME, Inc. will be sponsoring a drive from Connecticut, through New Jersey,
New York & onward to the gulf coast where victims are in which one to two
trucks will be dropping off all donations: Monetary donations towards trucks & gas – Canned Food - Clothing including shoes and socks – Water (bottled) – Diapers Baby wipes – Food & baby food –
Toothpaste – Toothbrushes – Blankets – Air mattresses & sheets – Children's books – Gas gift cards

We're accepting donations from now till Friday 5:00pm. The truck will be there around 6PM. Don't come late, because we will not be able to accept anymore.

Drop something off for this one & come back FREE October 7, 2005 for D-Block & Dipset for the Black Panther's Commemoration. You gotta be the first 100 donors at anyone of these locations between now and Friday 5PM. I suggest donating earlier in the week:

Manhattan (main drop-off location): Hunter College, Thomas Hunter Building room
305B entrance located at Lexington Ave. between 68th & 69th Street where G.A.ME
has meetings. Drop-offs can be made 2pm-6pm.

BROOKLYN-FOOD AND CLOTHING

1. LAFAYETTE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
85 SOUTH OXFORD
718-625-7515

2. PARK SLOPE COMMUNITY CHURCH
251 12TH ST (BETWEEN 4TH &5TH AVENUES)
718-965-1582 OR MS. MONA WILLIAMS 718-4991651

CASH CONTRIBUTIONS:
MISSISSIPPI ACTION FOR COMMUNITY EDUCATION
MR. WENDELL PARIS
119 SOUTH THEOBALD STREET
GREENVILLE, MISSISSIPPI 38701
TELEPHONE: 662-335-3523
E-MAIL: mace03bellsouth.net

REV. LUCIUS WALKER
IFCO PASTORS
402 WEST 145TH STREET
NYC 10031

"I want people to realize that we did not stay in the city so that we could steal and loot and commit crimes. A lot of those young men lost their minds because the helicopters would fly over us and they wouldn't stop. And it came to a point where these young men were so frustrated that they did start shooting. They weren't trying to get the helicopters. They thought maybe if they heard the gunfire, they would stop then. But that didn't help us. No one helped us."

Watch here. (Click on 3: Charmaine Neville-New Orleans Evacuee.)

* Al Gore finally got his flight into New Orleans to rescue his doctor-friend and patients--on Saturday. They were still there on fucking Saturday.

* One Republican strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to be seen as speaking for the president, said that while it was "a totally reasonable question" to ask what effect the hurricane and other current events might have on Mr. Bush's decision, "it's not going to affect his judgment."

The strategist noted that before Mr. Bush chose Judge Roberts almost seven weeks ago, "there was a lot of speculation that it's got to be a woman, it's got to be a Hispanic, it's got to be someone the Democrats will support, and it didn't affect his decision-making, and it won't affect his decision-making now."

Sociopath: He's the definition of it.

The taking of New Orleans.

for the march on Washington Sept 24, brooklyn parents for peace is offering *relatively* inexpensive roundtrip bus tickets from park slope, bam, downtown bk and bed-stuy.

read: what happens to a race deferred. "This is Hotel Rwanda all over again."

Elizabeth forwards this piece by Malik Rahim: "This is criminal."

via monsieur wang:

kanye west speaks truth to power.

Jim Lehrer Newshour. The columnists and the pundits, they are exerting a great effort to remain measured. Their sense of deep disturbance, fury, sorrow, butting their habitual impulse for on-camera professionalism. They are all so incredibly professional. I think they are operating under the assumption that expressing outrage on television robs you of credibility in the eyes of the American public. I am here numb in the straightback chair, desperately willing one of them to break down.

Tom Oliphant of the Boston Globe tells Jim, " The government has failed here. Bush is emblematic of that failure."

Jim wants to know, is there any chance for optimism in all of this?

David Brooks, of the New York Times, answers:

"Things are going to change now."

Cut to commercial, on PBS channel Thirteen, in perfect synergy: an advertisement for a party thrown for Congress by the White House, filmed at some point previously and set to air next week. It is a televised gala starring special musical guest Shirley Jones; she is sparkling yet dressed down in white poly-cotton pantsuit, warbling through half a standard on the edit. I don’t recognize the song. Cut to the President and Laura. Sitting front row. Gazing up at Shirley, mute adoration. George’s mouth half-grinning. half-agape. Loving her like, oh, like, like, oh, I don't know, like a fat kid loves cake. And looking a bit like one, too, stunned and empty, entertained, entertained, entertained. George is always so fucking entertained.

Cut to the President in New Orleans. “THIS IS A HUGE TASK THAT WE’RE DEALING WITH.” Hand pressed to his head. Vacation cut short.

The day before, C. Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans and a beacon of anger and human engagement in a televised landscape of façade language, GWBushian “tough talk,” and emotional distance, told WWL-AM, "Someone needs to get their ass on a plane and get down here and figure it out.”

According to the National Journal's Alexis Simendinger, speaking on Washington Week, Al Gore, the man America elected president in 2000, attempted to send in his own private jet to rescue his friend, a surgeon, from a hospital where he worked, along with as many patients and staff who could fit. He spent his own money to do this. He arranged for it to occur in less than one day. The plane was already on the tarmac when FEMA called it off, because the patients Gore rescued would not have been catalogued and accounted for in the particular way mandated by FEMA’s system of cataloguing and accounting—a bureaucratic formality that certainly gave someone a lot of pleasure to draft, but ultimately may have resulted in the deaths of who knows how many frail and ill, at the least stranded them in water without supplies. FEMA’s rate of exchange: one stamp of approval = one human life. This occurred early in the week, days before the National Guard arrived; Al Gore, individual entity, better organized and prepared to save lives in a crisis than the entire sector of our government designated to do the same.

The day before the National Guard arrived in New Orleans—to convert an anarchic disaster into one ruled by martial law?— Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco announced their arrival on television and on radio; she told CNN that 300 soldiers were on their way to “deal” with “looters” or, in her own parlance, “hoodlums.” “Fresh back from Iraq,” she said. "[The troops] have M-16s, and they're locked and loaded. I have one message for these hoodlums: These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so if necessary, and I expect they will."

It was a formality, a performance for the American public, because as you know, those people seeking food and water from flooded houses—“hoodlums”—lacked electricity to hear her warning over television or radio, assuming these “hoodlums” had radio and television to begin with. "Looters" seeking food, water, homes, their families, their communities, dry clothing, diapers, showers, medicine, sleep. In a city where one third of its denizens were living below the poverty line the day of the hurricane. These people, Hillary Clinton noted, are "...children, elderly people without water, without food, without economic means of any sort. They are the most vulnerable and they are being left behind."

***

Facts: Nearly 1900 Americans have been killed in Iraq since March of 2004. In June of 2004, Bush’s budget cut money for levees to less than 20% of what was needed, and diverted the money to funding America’s occupation of Iraq. The death toll in New Orleans is projected by some to top 10,000.

Tom Oliphant, of the Boston Globe, puts it to Jim Lehrer as follows: "Everything we've tried to absorb up to this point is about to greatly exceed what we've dealt with so far."

from the inbox: NYC benefit next week. Scroll down for tangible, non-government-related places to donate.

Join KEVIN POWELL and his special guests as they present a BENEFIT for New Orleans

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2005, CANAL ROOM
285 West Broadway, at Canal Street
downtown Manhattan in New York City
7PM-11PM
21 and over with ID, and please RSVP to cher_harrison@yahoo.com

Admission is FREE but you MUST bring one or more of the following items
for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. These items will be loaded onto a
big truck in front of CANAL ROOM and driven directly to Claiborne
County Health Center in Port Gibson, Mississippi, run by Dr. Demitri
Marshall. It is one of the closest rescue and help centers in the New
Orleans area and in a position to really get these items to people in
need. PLEASE make sure clothing and shoes and sneakers are new OR clean
and in good condition....

Clothing for children and adults
Adult shoes and sneakers
Adult socks
Children's shoes and sneakers
Children socks
Bottles of water
Diapers
Baby wipes
Baby food
Baby aspirin
Aspirin
Vitamins
Toilet paper
Sanitary napkins
Portable radios with batteries
Plastic forks, knives, and spoons
Cotton balls
Cotton swabs
Hydrogen peroxide BUT NOT rubbing alcohol, because that is flammable
Band aids
Shaving cream
Male AND female razors
Blankets
Air mattresses
Sheets
Pillows and pillow cases
Gift cards for gas
Wal mart gift cards
Garbage bags
Cleaning supplies
Soap
Toothpaste and toothbrushes
Flashlights
Batteries
Candles
Books for children, including coloring books
Books for adults
Magazines

If you are placing donated items in a bag PLEASE LABEL. For example, Children's shoes or Adult shoes, or Children's clothes or Adult clothes.

We will NOT be taking monetary donations. See information below on where you can send financial contributions. Guest deejays, musical performers, and corporate sponsors to be announced shortly

Monetary donations can be sent to these outlets, which we have confirmed are REALLY delivering services to folks in need:

BlackAmericaWeb.com Relief Fund
PO Box 803209
Dallas, TX 75240
OR you can make an online donation by going to www.blackamericaweb.com/relief
This fund has been set up by nationally syndicated radio personality TOM JOYNER

NAACP Disaster Relief Efforts

The NAACP is setting up command centers in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama as part of its disaster relief efforts. NAACP units across the nation have begun collecting resources that will be placed on trucks and sent directly into the disaster areas. Also, the NAACP has established a disaster relief fund to accept monetary donations to aid in the relief effort.

Checks can be sent to the NAACP payable to

NAACP Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund
4805 Mt. Hope Drive
Baltimore, MD 21215
Donations can also be made online here
FYI, the NAACP, founded in 1909, is America's oldest civil rights organization.

www.teamrescueone.com: Set up by native New Orleans rapper Master P and his wife Sonya Miller

You can mail or ship non perishable items to these following locations, which we have confirmed are REALLY delivering services to folks in need.

Center for LIFE Outreach Center
121 Saint Landry Street
Lafayette, LA 70506
atten.: Minister Pamela Robinson
337-504-5374

Mohammad Mosque 65
2600 Plank Road
Baton Rouge, LA 70805
atten.: Minister Andrew Muhammad
225-923-1400
225-357-3079

Lewis Temple CME Church
272 Medgar Evers Street
Grambling, LA 71245
atten.: Rev. Dr. Ricky Helton
318-247-3793

St. Luke Community United Methodist Church
c/o Hurricane Katrina Victims
5710 East R.L. Thornton Freeway
Dallas, TX 75223
atten.: Pastor Tom Waitschies
214-821-2970

S.H.A.P.E. Community Center
3815 Live Oak
Houston, Texas 77004
atten.: Deloyd Parker
713-521-0641

Alternative media outlets where you can get a more accurate and balanced presentation of the New Orleans catastrophe:

diversityinc.com
alternet.org
blackelectorage.com
NPR
davey d
slate
bet
all hiphop
democracy now
blackamericaweb.com

DailyKos asks, "Where is the government?"

As one of America's finest writers, of music and otherwise, puts it: "This is a social disaster as much as it is a metereological one." Read Ned Sublette's interview here. "We're not only watching history disappear, history is watching us disappear. How's that for a phrase."

Here's the moveon.org-recommended way to help. If you can.

As usual, fuck the language of the news.